Beautiful Atrocity

   I recently read someone explain Bipolar disorder as such, "a more intense experience of reality.” After reading this, I was like damn why did I not think of it like that… Anytime I have been asked to explain or describe it for others to understand, I get tongue-tied and a loss for words clouds my mind with ambiguity. I have under no circumstances been able to elucidate to anyone the entirety of what it is like or how it feels to go through all the concomitant paraphernalia of Bipolar. When I saw this person rationalize this statement, I was flabbergasted at how uncomplicatedly humble the statement was, but how precise as well. The minute a person utters the question to me I become bemused. All of my experiences commence, launching recollection flash backs for reference and then the words to describe everything seem insufficient and unjust. “A more intense experience of reality” is exactly how I should or would have explained it, if I ever thought so simply. Now I do not speak for others and only for my own experiences with what I am told is Bipolar disorder, but that hits it on the nose for me. Everything in my life is personally experienced tenfold, and always has been. I subsist in a realm of an ingenious frenzy, a creative masterpiece both at times macabre and exquisite. When I am happy, I am an ecstatic bustle. If I am sad or upset, I am a tenuously dark depressed basket case. Once something or someone confuses me or I do not unconditionally understand, then I am mentally encumbered. An exaggerated theatrical circus of behavioral emotions, thoughts, and actions is my daily life. It is almost as if I live in my own soap opera, as silly as that may sound. Everything is excessively over-dramatized and not for anybody’s viewing pleasure either. Every single facet of life and interaction becomes so distorted that there is no stability. All too often, I take things to the extreme without notice or intention. Things that would not fluster or distress others can send me propelling over the edge. An unpretentious disagreement will almost certainly turn into full-blown animosity and culpable despondency. My life and the people in it are incessantly in a juggling act, walking on glass trying not to be cut or burnt by the flames being thrown overhead. As much as I hate hurting the people in my life, the machinery of my mind concerning others is constantly scorning me as well. Once I feel someone or something is invading me personally in any way, I automatically pull out the guns and start firing without preparation or direction unintentionally. No one anticipates for this to happen, but it becomes irrefutably impossible to eradicate to say the least. Apologizing continuously for something that is beyond anyone’s control seems inadequately unfair and becomes arduous with the guilt that carries on. I am in no regard, using this as a legitimate excuse to come to be exonerated. This is who I am and I cannot modify things that are out of my control. I do not have the capacity to accommodate nor do I wish to be an impassive recluse due to centrifugal convictions beyond my hegemony. Everything in me is at all times on high alert for the next assault, in preparation to keep calm. However, my mind is the terrorist in its illusionary suicide mission and the war it is ultimately fighting is my amity. When I am not straining to keep myself sane amongst others, I am struggling with another side of my mind that is an erratically incoherent delirium, staving off the invisible capricious fiends and monsters within my head in reticence. My mind unfortunately has the ability to irrationalize any and everything within its reach. It takes the tiniest apprehensions and transforms them into an ogre. What might make others slightly uncomfortable has the ability to prompt my fight or flight mechanism and set forth a degree of fear that is uninhabitable. The level of creativity my mind holds can be a gift and a burden. For lack of better words, I live in a more intense reality.

Chasity